Cookbook Review

Daisy: Morning, Noon And Night

Bringing Your Family Together With Everyday Latin Dishes

By Daisy Martinez

CAPSULE REPORT: Daisy Martinez’s second book offers flavorful Latin recipes are easy to understand and execute. Daisy also helps the novice Latin cook by explaining the ingredients used in each recipe—their origins, what you can substitute and where you can find them. Daisy reminisces about traveling around the world with her family and discovering new foods, as well as finding new spins on dishes she’s made for years. To her, eating should be and is a great adventure as well as an education. This is Page 1 of a two-page review. Click on the black links below to view the other page.

The book breaks down the recipes in a very common sense way: breakfast, lunch and dinner. But, as we all know, who says you can’t eat breakfast for dinner or lunch for breakfast?

Morning

Breakfast in this book is divided into Everyday Breakfasts and Leisurely Breakfasts and Brunches. It covers a variety of easy and quick dishes, like Mayan Omelets, Egg And Cheese With Ripe Plantains, Spanish French Toast and Egg-Stuffed Baked Tomatoes. Yes, baked tomatoes for breakfast! Many people put chopped tomatoes in an omelet, so why not stuff the entire fruit and cover it in cheese?

Daisy shows you how to get the most out of your ingredients in a very creative way. And, remember—you can always eat the stuffed tomatoes for lunch or dinner. Gotta love food versatility!

Stuffed peppers are well-known; but you can serve stuffed tomatoes for breakfast. The recipe is on the next page. Photo courtesy Kyle Books.

Noon

For the lunch or noon menu, Daisy explains that in the Latin culture, the midday meal is traditionally the most important meal. Businesses shut down, and everyone stops to eat.

For this main meal, she offers ideas that include Empanadas With Potato Filling, Dominican–Style Pressed Salami And Cheese Sandwiches, Buenos Aires Hearts Of Palm Salad and a little gem called Daisy’s Favorite Salad—a recipe she says everyone always asks her for. It consists of all kinds of leafy greens, haricots verts, asparagus, cucumber, lemon-ginger olive oil, sliced fennel and Granny Smith apples.

There is also a lunchtime dessert called Baby Banana Beignets. I love beignets, which are basically fritters. In this recipe, they are served with powdered sugar, dulce de leche sauce and vanilla ice cream. Sounds like the perfect ending to the perfect lunch.

There is also a luncheon section on barbecue. Remember, the Latin midday meal is the big meal, so of course, barbecue would be included. Everything from Barbecued Beef Short Ribs, Grilled Skirt Steak With Chimichurri Sauce and Daisy’s Grilled Chicken Express is covered here.

I don’t know whether many of us can actually incorporate cooking and eating a big meal right in the middle of the day during the week, but I do like the notion of lunch being leisurely and calming so everyone can become energized to go back to work.

Have some arroz con pollo. The recipe is on the next page. Photo courtesy Kyle Books.

For dessert, you have to try the Sweet Earth Chocolate Mousse with Chocolate Cookie Crumbles (Tierrita Dulce). This is creamy chocolate mousse served in little flowerpots.

To be honest, there’s such a variety of choices here, there’s truly something for everyone. Daisy’s message is that you can incorporate all of these dishes into your daily life. She wants you to be creative—not to be afraid of trying something new—and to eat these dishes whenever you want to. Food should bring people together—family, friends, everyone. It’s a good message.